Tag Archives: natural history

Puzzling over Tyrannosaurs at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles

Thomas and friends illustrate three stages of tyranosaur development (Photo:Tim Jones)
Thomas and friends illustrate three stages of development (Photo:Tim Jones)

How when we dig up a dinosaur bone do we know it comes from a young animal or a smaller example of a different species?  That’s a question the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles collection of T.rex helps answer.

Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History ©Tim Jones
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History

Yesterday, Erin and I visited the new Dinosaur Hall, where for the first time fossilised skeletons of three complete Tyrannosaurs are brought together to illustrate the different stages in the animal’s development.

 Thomas today: looking good
Thomas today: looking good

Above you see the three who died at 17 yrs, 14 yrs, and 2 yrs.

Here’s the largest, Thomas, as he looked a couple of years back when we last visited the museum: encrusted in rock, but the star all the same of his own very public extraction in the Dino Lab:

 in 2010 (Photo:Tim Jones)
Thomas being uncovered in the Dino Lab (Photo: Tim Jones)
Dino Lab in 2010 (Photo:Tim Jones)
In the Dino Lab visitors can watch the professionals at work

Dino Lab at Museum of Natural History Los Angeles

Dino Lab at Museum of Natural History Los AngelesComparing the three, we see that Tyrannosaurs don’t just scale up uniformly as they grow.  The eye sockets, for example, are more rounded in babies, changing to a keyhole shape in the adult.  The accompanying texts to the display explain how the relative length of the foot bone to the leg decreases from 70% to 50% from 2 to 17 yrs.

At 14 yrs. Adolescent, but dangerous.
2 yr old toddler Tyrannosaur

On a lighter note.  Ever wondered what a Tyrannosaurus rex looks like with (most of) its bones missing?  Probably not I guess, but here it is:

Boneless

This was a bit of fun we got roped into: a Tyrannosaur puzzle no less.   The bones of the T.rex are taken off the frame, and it’s up to us non-experts to put them back in the right place.   It’s harder than you might think – and it makes you think! (Shh – that’s the point).

Where to start…..

I got off to an easy start with those deceptively unimpressive fore-limbs we all know and love from Jurassic Park, but soon came to grief when it came to the ribs. Best leave things to the experts:

The tail bone’s connected to the …..er…..?

Assembling a Tyrannosaur is just like working on your car: there’s always an extra piece left over when you put it back together……

A tyrannosaur also guards the gate... (photo:Tim Jones)
A tyrannosaur also guards the gate…

Great exhibition and well recommended.   Thanks to NHMLA for an enjoyable afternoon.

 

A Bone to Pick with Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

Before heading back to LA from Santa Barbara last week, Erin and I made a final stop at the local natural history museum.  I’ve blogged before about how great this place is. Not the largest of museums, but somehow managing to cover all the traditional departments through locally themed exhibits – and all in the most beautiful location.

whale skull at santa barbara museum of natural history
Whale skull at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, June 2010 (Photo:Tim Jones)

In the 18 months since our last visit, two new exhibitions have appeared, and the bird gallery has reopened following renovation.  But to our surprise, all that is left of the museum’s flagship exhibit – a 72ft Blue Whale skeleton – is it’s head.

The complete whale skeleton in 2008 (Photo:Tim Jones)

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Nice spot..... (Photo:Tim Jones)

For the 20 year old skeleton, one of only five on display in the USA, is in need of a major overhaul.  The skull will be completely replaced, and the remaining bones will be refurbished or replaced.

The $500,000 needed to complete the work is being raised by inviting donors to sponsor individual bones and sections of the skeleton through the ‘Buy-A-Bone’ scheme (links to the Museum’s website).

The right to name this particular Balaenoptera musculus has already gone – for a cool $100k.  But the skull and vertebral column are still up for grabs at $75k and $137k respectively; most of the ribs are available at $25k each, the left flipper at $13k, or one of twelve carpal bones can be yours for the pocket money sum of $500.

So go ahead – pick your bone!

Roast Dog and Aquatint

In 1769, James Cook visited the island of Otaheite, or modern Tahiti, to observe the transit of venus.

And these are the Otaheite Dog and Wolf, or at least 1788 aquatint renditions of them, made with some license if the awkward stance and anthropomorphic gaze are to be believed;  but let that not distract from their story.

Acquatint of the Otaheite Dog by Charles Catton (Tim Jones's collection)
Acquatint of the Otaheite Wolf by Charles Catton (Tim Jones's collection)

Drawn from life, engraved, and published by Charles Catton in his ‘Animals, Drawn From Nature and Engraved in Aqua-tinta‘, in 1788, the prints are technically interesting as representing the first use of aquatint for natural history illustration.

Catton started life as a coach painter, expertly representing animals in heraldry, and achieving the rank of coach painter to George III. Later in his career he helped document animals observed by adventurers like John White, who travelled to the South Seas in 1787, and whose ‘A Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales’ featured Catton’s picture of an Australian kangeroo.  Like most artists at this time,  Catton didn’t actually travel with the explorers, but worked from live and dead specimens sent home from the New World expeditions.

Catton's Kangeroo for John White

A contemporary advertisement for the journal contains a statement on accuracy that, applied to the Otaheite dog, is indefensibile by modern standards:

“The Public may rely, with the most perfect confidence, on the care and accuracy with which the drawings have been copied from nature, by Miss Stone, Mr. Catton, Mr. Nodder, and other artists; and the Editor flatters himself the Engravings are all executed with equal correctness, by, or under the immediate inspection of Mr. Milton.”

Despite their failings, Catton’s aquatints were an honest attempt to represent reality.  What they lack, with the animals drawn dead and out of context, is any essence of the beasts: be that energy, poise, or sloth.

Catton’s Otaheite dog and wolf look similar, which is intriguing given John White made the same observation of their Australian counterparts:

“This animal is a variety of the dog, and, like the shepherd’s dog in most countries, approaches near to the original of the species, which is the wolf, but is not so large, and does not stand so high on its legs.

The ears are short, and erect, the tail rather bushy; the hair, which is of a reddish-dun colour, is long and thick, but strait. It is capable of barking, although not so readily as the European dogs; is very ill-natured and vicious, and snarls, howls, and moans, like dogs in common.

Whether this is the only dog in New South Wales, and whether they have it in a wild state, is not mentioned; but I should be inclined to believe they had no other; in which case it will constitute the wolf of that country; and that which is domesticated is only the wild dog tamed, without having yet produced a variety, as in some parts of America.”

Note the language: “approaches near to the original of the species”.  Some concept of evolution clearly existed way before Darwin published his 1859 Origin of Species.

Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks

The London Natural History Museum’s beautiful ‘Voyages of Discovery’ describes the Pacific crossing made by James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, and Sydney Parkinson on the Endeavour, including their visit to Otaheite. What it fails to mention is the Otaheite dog and, more importantly – how to cook it.  For that we must turn to primary sources.  In ‘A Journey of a Voyage to the South Seas‘, Sydney Parkinson describes how civilised Englishmen came to share the Otaheite locals’ penchant for tasty roast dog:

fire“These people also are fond of dog’s-flesh, and reckon it delicious food, which we discovered by their bringing the leg of a dog roasted to sell. Mr. Banks ate a piece of it, and admired it much. He went out immediately and bought one, and gave it to some Indians to kill and dress it in their manner, which they did accordingly. After having held the dog’s mouth down to the pit of his stomach till he was stifled, they made a parcel of stones hot upon the ground, laid him upon them, and singed off the hair, then scraped his skin with a cocoa shell, and rubbed it with coral; after which they took out the entrails, laid them all carefully on the stones, and after they were broiled ate them with great goût; nor did some of our people scruple to partake with them of this indelicate repast. Hav-ing scraped and washed the dog’s body clean, they prepared an oven of hot stones, covered them with bread-fruit leaves, and laid it upon them, with liver, heart and lungs, pouring a cocoa-nut full of blood upon them, covering them too with more leaves and hot stones, and inclosed the whole with earth patted down very close to keep in the heat. It was about four hours in the oven, and at night it was served up for supper: I ate a little of it; it had the taste of coarse beef, and a strong disagreeable smell; but Captain Cook, Mr. Banks, and Dr. Solander, commended it highly, saying it was the sweetest meat they had ever tasted; but the rest of our people could not be prevailed on to ate any of it.”

And that about wraps it up for the Otaheite Dog.  Yummy.

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

Despite being a regular visitor to California over the last couple of years, I’ve only today made the two hour drive from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara; and a beautiful and interesting place it turned out to be.

Enviable Location. All rights reserved Tim Jones 2008.

Santa Barbara’s Museum of Natural History may be smaller than its South Kensington or Los Angeles cousins, but its collections are comprehensive and its situation enviable . Sitting atop a shady gully in a forest setting, the museum, like so much of the understated value in this city, nestles in suburban anonymity. Through the front door, all the expected departments – from mineralogy to dinosaurs – spar off from a central courtyard.

Found on the Beach. All rights reserved Tim Jones 2008.

There is a complete blue whale skeleton in the front parking lot and a tranquil nature trial in the ajoining forest. The current special exhibition is a collection of dinosaur finds from Paul Sereno and teams’ dig in Africa, including whole skeletons which tangibly illustrate the simultaneous but geographically isolated (post Pangaean break-up) evolution of Africa’s version of the T-Rex.

Africa's T-Rex
Africa's T-Rex. All rights reserved Tim Jones 2008.

I found the range of exhibits truly diverse and a little surprising, particularly with slices of Von Hagens’s ‘6 metre woman’, (on loan from Bodyworlds in LA) suspended nearby a more traditional collection of 1920s stuffed mammals. Well worth the $10.

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